Dam-free hydro-power plant

Abstract

A dam-free hydro-power plant for generating electricity comprises a convergent-divergent water passage including a cylindrical neck containing a shutter, branch pipes connected with the neck, each branch pipe including a reverse valve capable of triggering, depending on the stream direction in the passage. A first and second branch pipes are located in front of the shutter, a third and fourth branch pipes are located behind thereof, a first and second buffers accumulating respectively higher-pressure liquid and lower-pressure liquid, the buffers are communicated through a cross-flow pipeline enclosing a turbine joined with an electro-generator. The first buffer is communicated with the neck via the first and the third branch pipe, whereas the second buffer is communicated with the neck via the second and the fourth branch pipe. The plant is highly efficient due to deploying hydro-impact, and particularly usable in places of tidal activities, in freezing rivers for all-year-round generating electricity.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This U.S. patent application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a) through (d) from a Russian Federation patent application No. 2007135746 filed on 27 Sep. 2007.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The invention relates to the field of hydro-power engineering, namely to hydroelectric power plants and stations, and is primarily intended for conversion of renewable energy possessed by water currents of rivers and other water reservoirs, as well as for conversion of renewable tidal energy into electric power of direct or alternating current.[0003]There is known a hydroelectric power plant including a plate, leanly submerged into water towards the water stream at ⅓ of the depth, with a takeoff of energy of the most potential upper layer of the water stream, elevating the specified layer to a predetermined height, and guiding it to a funnel-shaped mouth of a vertical cavity; and a turbine mounted at the base of the vertical cavity on a vertical ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]The results achievable by the invention are: an increase of profitability and efficiency of the power plant by means of the fuller usage of water streams energy, and an opportunity of all-year-round employment of hydroelectric power plants without a dam, especially on the rivers freezing in the cold time, or in slow water currents conditions.

[0012]The analysis of known waterpower plants has shown, that there is an opportunity to increase their efficiency and to lower their specific consumption of materials due to fuller usage of the water flow energy, both in the forward direction and in the opposite direction that takes place during tidal activities in the coastal zones of seas and oceans.

[0014]The above described design makes it possible to solve at once two engineering problems: reducing hydraulic resistance of the water passage, and partially transforming potential energy of the water stream into kinetic energy of the stream that encounters the shutter with a significant velocity. In turn, this allows increasing energy of the artificially created hydro-impact.

[0015]Besides, due to the energy of hydro-impact, the inventive structure of hydroelectric power plants with two buffers allows creating a higher pressure of liquid in the first buffer, and, on the contrary, creating a lower pressure of liquid in the second buffer, which leads to an increase of the pressure difference in the cross-flow pipeline connecting the buffers that drives the turbine, and thereby significantly improves its efficiency and power output.

[0017]The opportunity of installation of the inventive hydroelectric power plant without a dam below the water level, for example in a river, allows exploitation of the plant during the winter period, when the river is covered by ice. In other embodiments, such power plant, immersed into seawater, may operate during strong surface sea waves without significant influences therefrom.

Problems solved by technology

Such hydroelectric power plants without a dam have a deficiency in that the operation of the turbine depends on the elevation level of the water stream provided by the plate, and consequently the stream potential energy in such a unit is insignificant.

However, it has rather low efficiency that is conditioned by the fact that the pressure of water is practically created only by the tilt of riverbed, and therefore the power capacity of such hydroelectric plants is relatively small.

In addition, the slow rotation of the driving wheel of turbine requires implementation of heavy and expensive multiplying gears for transmission of the rotation to the electro-generator.

However, the necessity of raising the water stream above the river level for supplying the stream to the cut-off valve leads to additional losses of the water stream energy that reduces the efficiency of conversion of the stream energy into electric energy.

Besides, the necessity of creation of the vertical channel for water delivery to the driving wheel of turbine leads to complication of the design of such power plant, and increasing its dimensions.

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